


Born to Bee Wild

by Sarielle



Series: Shermaine Pines AU [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A large box of angry bees, Awkward Family Fistbumps, Bees, Bees?, Drabble, Family Bonding, Gen, Humour, I'm sorry for the title but not really i googled bee puns for this, Jewish Pines Family, Pines Family A++ Problem Solving, Protective Siblings, TRANSPHOBES GET PUT IN THE BEE ORB TO ATONE FOR THEIR SINS, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarielle/pseuds/Sarielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grunkle Stan gets a box of several thousand angry bees. Dipper gets an offensive phone call from a relative. Mabel gets an UNQUENCHABLE RIGHTEOUS TWIN FURY and knows a backlog of old gangster films. A plan is made. Ford is out of the loop yet again.</p><p>(In the same canon as my Life and Times of Shermaine Pines but can be read without reading that. This is a standalone nonsense drabble I wrote for a friend) </p><p>trigger warnings for implied transphobia and bees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born to Bee Wild

 

The whole thing wouldn't have started if Grunkle Stan hadn't acquired so many bees. So the blame— Mabel had rationalised to the others later— fell directly on him.

Stan Pines knew a guy, (or several guys in in a pickup truck, in fact) and a  deal was made for them to transport some pugs across the US border. Unfortunately, for them and for Stan, the trafficking  business is not exactly very  eftpos-ready and therefore it came to be that they resulted to a complicated a system of barter, earning Stanley a total of  $42.18, a new pair of  sunglasses, the rusted mouthpiece of a saxophone and around two thousand enraged bees in a plastic box.

The perfect crime.

The pugs were gone, the $42.18 was safely concealed in a secret hiding pocket on his person _(well, okay, yeah, his wallet_ ). The sunglasses and mouthpiece he gave to the twins. He dumped them unceremoniously on the kitchen table where Dipper had been painstakingly setting up the board of ‘Don’t wake Stalin!’

“Wait, Stan! I’d just finishing setting that up” said Dipper climbing down under the table on all fours to collect the scattered comrade tokens.

“Cool! Can I keep these sunglasses, Grunkle Stan?!” Mabel squealed, not waiting for an answer she put them on with lightning-fast reflexes, holding the saxophone mouthpiece to her ear.

She pulled her face into a mask of mock seriousness.

“Bzzt. Agent Waddles. Come in Agent.” She said into the mouthpiece, staring down the pig. Waddles gently head-butted her in the face in response, licking at the mouthpiece out of curiosity. Mabel, now covered in slobbery pig kisses, burst into a fit of giggles swinging her feet back and forth dangling from her chair.

Dipper under the table let out a frustrated groan, ducking his head to miss his sister’s overzealous feet connecting with his face.

Their Grunkle left them to their fun. “Yeah Yeah, Don't say I don't get you kids anything.”

 Now all Stan had to find was a use for all these excess bees.

How much exactly constitutes an _excess_ of bees depends entirely on where and what you intend to contain them in. This is because bees, like other liquids fill to fit the container they’re in.

Unfortunately beekeeping equipment was not one of the many wonders kept in the Mystery Shack, as the cops had seized most of it after that stunt with the elementary school a few years back. No, for now the bees would have to remain in the plastic storage box he'd got them in. The bees were not best pleased with this arrangement.

Bees, what the hell was he going to do with bees? It had to be good. It had to be impressive, a spectacle! Something the kids would be proud enough of that they would stop chattering on about that no-good nerd brother of his and take a minute to appreciate their original Grunkle, the real deal. The best guy. The first edition (by a crucially important 6 and a half minutes). The alpha twin.

Bee Fireworks? No, too messy and besides, Stan was pretty sure that old kook McGucket had already tried those. He wanted to be _original._

Some kind of bee powered engine? Feasible, sure but not the neon and explosions kind of impressive he was looking for. Maybe this was a problem for another day.

He set the box of bees down on the front porch, to the side so it was out of the way. Probably should put a blanket or a tarp over them, he thought, so no cops could see he was hoarding bees again.

He didn't get that far however, Mabel almost gave him a heart attack when she banged the front door open straight into Stan’s back, and then blew a red Soviet Flag kazoo loudly in his face.

“Grunkle Stan!”

“ _Hot Fudge Sundaes_! Kid, don't scare me like that I'm too old for that kind of excitement.”

Mabel shrugged, she took the kazoo out of her mouth and rubbed it on her sweater. Today’s sweater was teal and had a picture of a planet on it, possibly Saturn.

 It was Saturday.

Most of her sweaters were puns.

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan. But Soos said there’s a lady on the phone who wants to talk to you.” 

“A lady?” Stan adjusted his bow tie and straightened his fez, “Well then, I better go see what she wants”

Stan made his way into the gift shop where Soos, was standing with the phone to his ear, desperately trying to get a word in edgeways.

“Uh, Mr Pines is here now, ma’am.” He said passing Stan the phone with a shudder.

Stanley held the receiver to his ear. “Hello, yes this is Stan?”

“I know who you are Uncle Stanford.” The woman’s voice, sounded young and disdainful. She had a grating quality to her voice like a vocal lawnmower. He recognised it instantly with a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Miriam. What do you want?” he was blunt, but not outwardly rude. He still wasn’t entirely sure his sister hadn’t bugged the shack somehow, and he didn’t want any more trouble with her then he already would be in when the kids told her some of their stories from the summer.

His niece tittered down the phone at him, a small haughty laugh. The kind that sounded fine on a reality tv show but was very jarring in conversation.

 “Well I heard on the grapevine that Isaac’s kids are staying with you for the summer and I was just--”

Stan pulled the phone away from his ear and covered the receiver with his hand glancing around for an out. Mabel had followed him into the gift shop watching him carefully rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. Sorry to do this to you, kid. He thought.

“Mabel,” he hissed.  “It's _your aunt_ , she’s going to talk to you whether you want her to or not and for that, I’m sorry. Remember you’re having a great time, don't mention any of the weird stuff or you know…” he pointed down at the floor, and the basement below it, “I'll pay you back for it later. Bye.”  He crossed the other side of the room without giving her time to reply.

Mabel nodded with a face of grave understanding, _mission accepted_. She was a braver kid than they gave her credit for.

“Hi Aunt Miri, how are you?” the girl scrunched up her face in annoyance, yet her voice was as chipper and sing-song as ever.

“I'm good, we're having lots of fun here with Grunkle Stan, actually! We went fishing, and we went to the pool and, uh we had a karaoke party with my friends.”

“Who?” said Mabel, miming stabbing something in the air.  “I don't know who that is Aunt Miri.”

Dipper appeared in the doorway, “Who’s on the phone?” he asked his sister.

Mabel mimed strangling herself, her tongue jutting out the side of her mouth.

“Oh...” he said. He knew the sign. “Sucks to be you.”

There was a pause and Mabel frowned, kicking at the counter.

“I don’t have a sister, Aunt Miriam.” she said, firmly. Her lips thin.

Dipper twitched, both arms crossed instinctually across his chest. Something dark passed over his face and then was gone. He straightened his hat, and gave Mabel a tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Stanley clenched his punching hand. _Who did this woman think she was?_

Mabel’s chipper voice phased from cotton-candy to weapons grade titanium in a matter of milliseconds. In a twelve-year-old girl, Stan noted, the transition was brutal.

“Dipper _, my brother_. Is outside. Chopping wood for Grunkle Stan, so he can’t come to the phone right now.” Said Mabel, shooting her brother a look, which Stan couldn’t decipher.

Dipper nodded, in response. That meant thank you. Stan spoke twin. 

“Yeah, no. Okay well I need to go and you readlu need to remember better next time. Bye.” She didn’t wait for a reply before slamming the phone down.

“Did that brown-nosing _yente_ , just do what I thought she did, to _my_ great-nephew?” growled Stan, flinging a bobblehead off the counter in frustration.

“It’s fine, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper mumbled, pulling his vest a little around his shoulder “Calm down.”

“ _It is not fine, Dipper_! She can’t keep doing that to my brobro!” Mabel was a fluffy sweater-wearing, kitten-slippered beacon of indignant rage.

“Stick up for yourself, kid!” said Stan. Dipper rubbed at his forehead with a groan.

“Look! I do stick up for myself, when it’s _worth it_! Mabel, Grunkle Stan can we _please_ just drop it and leave it alone. She's obviously doing it on purpose to try and start something. I’ve stopped trying to explain myself to people who won't listen. I’ve got you guys and mom and dad. Nonna and Zaidie, Aunty Sam, Yu Min, Soos and Wendy. They all support me. Far as she goes: I don’t care.  I’m over throwing all my energy into one stupid woman who won’t listen.” he looked from his sister’s shining eyes to his Uncle’s set jaw and sighed.

Nothing would quell a Pines scorned except ‘righteous’ reactive pranking. It was like trying to stop salmon swimming upstream. Dipper knew this, and internally was kind of happy about it.

 Dipper threw his hands up in the air, “Ok fine. You do whatever you want but I’m going to do something _constructive_ with my day, so don’t pin this one on me.”

Stan watched his great-nephew’s back move down the hall out of his line of sight.

He turned to Mabel who was fuming on the spot. Her cheeks puffier and pinker than normal.

Pink, the colour of rage.

Stan laid a calming hand on his great-niece’s shoulder.

“Sweetie, can you think of anything _legal_ we could do to your aunt with a trunk of angry bees?”

Mable paused. “I _suppose_ we could mail some to her. You know, like a warning.”

Stan regarded his twelve year old niece with a look of wonder.

“Are you suggesting we start some kind of bee-mafia?” he asked.

Mabel shrugged inspecting her fingernails, which were painted a chipping emerald and white polka dot pattern, likely from her last sleepover session with Candy and Grenda.

“Well I mean we _are_ a family and you _do_ do things, in an organised manner that can be seen as criminal.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “Bee Mafia it is, Grunkle Stan!”

Stanley clapped a meaty hand over his heart. She gave him the warm fuzzies, this child, this tiny Machiavellian _angel_ , it was like having his sister staying all over again. Except with less crying and nobody was pregnant.

“What kind of crazy movies have you been watching, kid?”

“I’ve watched 3 seasons of Ducktective in the last two days without breaks.” Mabel waved her hands in the air, eyes huge, brown and manic. “I’m a woman on the edge!”

“Alright, alright. I’m gonna draw up a plan. You go and find something to put them into, alright?”

“I know just the thing, Grunkle Stan, said Mabel.

 

* * *

 

 

 “ ** _BEE ORB, BEE ORB, BEE ORB_** _!"_ The chanting echoed down the stairs, accompanied by a low rumble.

Stanford could make out his brother’s amongst the chanters, also Mabel. A recipe for trouble, those two.

Ford let out a world-weary sigh and set down his marker and rulers.

He’d been marking the dimensions of the lab against his own blueprints, to check if the portal’s deployment had altered the space at all.

“What the hell are they up to now?” he said to the dials and the monitors. He got no answer.

He made his way upstairs, _just to check_.

At the top of the stairs, he paused at the sight of his great-nephew in the living room with him.

Dipper was sitting on in the window seat, his knees drawn up protecting his chest, his arms around his knees. Journal 3 on the seat beside him, his hand over the cut-out of Ford’s own.

He looked tired, but there was a tiny smile playing on his lips.

Ford shifted his weight awkwardly, not wanting to surprise the boy and frighten him again. He cleared his throat. His nephew pulled his hand away from the journal, a little flustered.

“Uh, Hi Great Uncle Ford.” He said quickly.

Dipper is everything alright? I heard rhythmic chanting coming from up here.”

His nephew let out a sigh of his own. He rubbed at his face with his hand, tilting back the brim of his hat. Ursa Major peeked out from behind a curl of brown hair. Ford hid a lopsided smile under his hand by pretending to scratch at his nose.

He remembered a little girl with similar thick brown hair in love with the constellations, he remembered teaching  her how to find the soup ladle  in the night sky. Here was this boy, her grandson, not unlike Stanford himself at his age, with the mark born pressed into his skin. There were no such things as coincidences in his experience.

“As far I can tell, Mabel and Grunkle Stan are bonding… over me?” said the boy.

“That’ll teach that two bit harpy-voiced demon to antagonise my great-nephew.” Grunkle Stan’s growling voice could be heard from the kitchen.

“Demon?” Oh, Dipper...you didn't?”

Dipper shook his head, slightly offended at the implication. “He's not talking about Bill. Don't worry about it Uncle Ford.”

“If not Bill then who?” Ford asked.

“He's being metaphorical. It's a metaphor.”

“My brother wouldn’t know a literary device if it punched him in the face.”

“He does if it's insulting. Look, Grunkle Stan really doesn't like our Aunt Miriam that much. She’s- Uh... She’s a psychologist. A very annoying psychologist.”

“Oh, I see.” He said solemnly.  He knew what his brother thought of shrinks.

“That doesn't bode well.”

“Yeah well Mabel’s supervising. It can’t be that bad right? I mean she does tend to get a little over-eager when I’m involved. But still I have faith she won’t let Stan do anything too bad.”

“Grunkle Stan! Time to take this baby the Post Office!” Mabel’s triumphant voice could be heard from two rooms away followed by a low angered pulsing buzzing noise that boomed throughout the house shaking at the photo frames on the wall.

Ford raised a quizzical eyebrow at Dipper who clapped a palm to his starry forehead.

“Do I even want to know?” Ford asked.

Dipper shrugged his shoulders looking about three times more exhausted than he had before.

 “No, I think that might make you an accessory.” He said, picking up the journal to browse, sounding somewhat resigned to his family’s shenanigans.

“Well, I think you’d be right there.” Ford agreed, with a gesture to something behind him.

Dipper looked over his shoulder.

From out the window, the two of them could see Mabel juggling what appeared to be plastic hamster balls. She saw her audience from the window and waved at them with a huge mischievous grin, her braces glinting in the afternoon sun.

“No one messes with my _brother_ , except me.”  She called out menacingly,  throwing one ball up in the air and catching it again like a circus act.

“Don’t do that, kid. You’ll make them angrier than they are.” Said Stanley. “Wait, you’re not allergic to bee stings are ya?”

Hearing, this from inside the house Ford made a strangled noise in his throat , like a dying goose.

 “Don't panic, She's not allergic” said Dipper at exactly the same time as Mabel’s chipper voice chimed in: “No! It’s safe!”

“Good, then let’s go!”

Stanford sighed, how did anyone trust his brother to take care of children?

“What even started all this mess in the first place?” he asked his great-nephew.

Dipper looked away, staring back out the window. Don’t worry about it. It’s not really a big deal.”

“You’re forgetting, young man. That I am a twin myself.” He moved to sit down in the window seat beside Dipper. “Only the most deserving bullies ever got the ‘no one picks on my brother but me’ rhetoric.” He grinned remembering how one particular incident had left him with a concussion and Stanley with his first broken nose. Their mother had banned them from TV for a month. “They usually got a few knuckle sandwiches too.”

That got a chuckle at least, Stanford wasn't _completely_ without empathy skills. He noted.

“Does your aunt like to pick on you or something?” he asked, curious. “It must be big enough of an issue to make Stanley want to retaliate.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Uncle Ford. Uh- I mean no offense, it’s just that...it’s… _private_.”

“ _Oh,_ I see.” He didn't see at all but the boy’s shifting eye contact and reddening cheeks suggested he really ought to leave well enough alone.

“Can’t a boy have _some_ secrets, Uncle Ford? I don't know you that well and it’s really not relevant to the mission. Besides Bill’s already worn my head like a skull cap, if he was gonna use it against me he’s had plenty of chances.”

“Yes, you’re right of course, Dipper. I- I didn’t mean to pry. I’m just worried especially when my idiot brother gets all messed up in this.”

“Stan is a little unusual in his methodology, but he means well.” Dipper shrugged both shoulders arms still tight against his chest.

“Yes, well. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Dipper.” Ford said, looking back out through the window. There was no sign of Mabel or his brother.

  
“Hey, Grunkle Ford? I know you guys have stuff between you and I’m not going to even touch that ,but all I’m trying to say is Stan’s been great to us as long as I’ve known him. My Dad even has stories about things he did for him and his sisters when they were kids. I mean, many were legally and morally suspect, but he did it for his family. I guess he did it in your name. But I mean he could have done a lot worse. He’s your _brother_ , not a demon.”

Stanford looked at the heartfelt expression on the boy’s face and winced. “I- I don’t think this is a matter I want to discuss with you, Dipper. There’s a lot more to Stan and I’s history that you can’t fully understand.”

“And there’s a lot more to mine, that you don’t understand. That’s fine. Maybe one day we’ll close the gap. But for now I’ll try not to step on your toes if you don't step on mine. Deal?

“Deal.” Said Ford, after some careful thought.

“Uh, I'd rather we not shake on it, all things considered.” Said Dipper, rubbing the back of his neck, obviously feeling uncomfortable.

“Yes, I think that would be for the best.” It was strange to think how Bill could ruin something as mundane as a handshake but still he could understand his great-nephew’s concern.

Dipper offered a clenched fist, fingers facing Ford. “Awkward family fist bump?”

Ford bumped a six-fingered fist against the boy’s own.

“Awkward family fist bump, it is.” He said.


End file.
